Blog

The Worst of Maricopa County’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio

by Web Team on 12/15/2011 at 5:29pm

As the Department of Justice’s investigation and lawsuit have shown, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s discriminatory practices and abuses of power have made him a Bull Connor for the 21st century. Below are some of the highlights–or rather, lowlights–of Arpaio’s career: terrorizing immigrants and detainees such as the mother he forced to give birth in shackles; abusing power and embracing corruption, including misusing $100 million in taxpayer money to fund his own pet projects; and ignoring serious crime in his county, including letting over 400 sex crimes cases go uninvestigated.

April 2008: Over 40,000 Un-Served Felony Warrants
In an interview with Arpaio, an Arizona Republic reporter pointed out that the county had over 40,000 unserved felony warrants, and quoted Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon saying that Arpaio had created “a sanctuary county” for felons.

June 2008:2,700 Lawsuits Filed Against Arpaio
Between 2004 and 2007, 2,700 lawsuits were filed against Sheriff Joe Arpaio in federal and county courts – 50 times the number of suits filed in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston combined.

October 2008: Judge Says Conditions in Arpaio’s Jails “Violate the Constitution”
A federal judge ruled in October 2008 that Sheriff Arpaio and county health officials “violated the Constitution by depriving jail inmates of adequate medical screening and care, feeding them unhealthy food and housing them in unsanitary conditions.”

Furthermore, the 2012 DOJ lawsuit against Arpaio found evidence of an endemic culture of hostility and discrimination against Latino inmates: MCSO jail employees frequently refer to Latinos as “wetbacks,” “Mexican bitches,” and “stupid Mexicans.” Whole areas of a jail have been put into lockdown because of a single inmate who could not understand English—thereby inciting hostility toward the inmate—and Latino prisoners have been put into solitary confinement simply because they could not understand English.

May 2009: Arpaio Stalks Arizona Attorney General Terry GoddardOn the day the Arizona Republic ran an article about an FBI investigation of Arpaio’s office that quoted Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, Arpaio’s deputies went to Goddard’s home. They sat in a squad car watching the house for ninety minutes before leaving.

November 2009: Arpaio Forces Mother to Give Birth while Handcuffed to Bed
In a story reported by Telemundo in 2009, Sheriff Arpaio forced Alma Minerva Chacon to give birth while she was in shackles. Following the birth, Chacon was told that unless someone came to pick up the newborn in 72 hours, her child would be turned over to state custody.

Other cases of inhumanity toward Latina women include the story of an MCSO officer who stopped a Latina woman — a citizen of the United States and five months pregnant at the time – as she pulled into her driveway. When he asked her to sit on the hood of her car and she refused, the officer grabbed her arms, pulled them behind her back, and slammed her, stomach first, into the vehicle three times. MCSO has also been known to deny immigrant women detainees basic sanitary items, forcing them to remain with sheets or pants soiled from menstruation.

December 2009: Arpaio Comes Under FBI Investigation for Using his Power to Intimidate Political Opponents
After Arpaio and a political ally, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, attempted to indict local officials they saw as enemies, the FBI launched an investigation into whether Arpaio was abusing his position to target his opponents. Arpaio and his allies were found to have filed complaints against judges who either made public statements critical of MCSO or had issued decisions that Arpaio / MCSO disliked. The 2012 DOJ lawsuit against Arpaio further found that he once arrested a critic for engaging in protected speech and that retaliation, rather than legitimate law enforcement, motivated the action. Andrew Thomas was disbarred in April 2012 for ethical violations.

October 2010: Violent Crime Rates Rise Under Arpaio, Fall in Rest of Arizona
From 2002 to 2009, the rate of violent crime across the state of Arizona fell by 12%, and cities within Maricopa County saw significant decreases as well. Areas policed by Arpaio’s sheriff’s office, however, increased by 58% during this time. Meanwhile, 911 response times in Maricopa County increased significantly.

April 2011: Arpaio Suspected of Misspending $100M in Taxpayer Funds, Refuses to Turn Over Records
An investigation into the Maricopa County sheriff’s office discovered that Arpaio, the Bull Connor reincarnate of immigration enforcement, inappropriately spent $99.5 million from two jail funds over the last eight years to pay for other law enforcement operations—including immigration patrols. When the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors met to discuss the investigation, Arpaio didn’t attend–he was busy leading an immigration raid on a dry cleaners in Mesa.

May 2011: Sheriff Joe Arpaio Is Too Busy Chasing Immigrants to Investigate 400 Sex Crime CasesABC 12 News in Arizona reported that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) failed to adequately investigate more than 400 sex-crime cases over a two-year period, many of which involved children from 2 to 16 years old. Many of these victims were the children of undocumented immigrants. Perhaps it’s unsurprising that Arpaio was so uninterested in investigating cases when immigrants were the victims instead of the perpetrators: as Arpaio once told Larry King, his deputies arrest “very few” non-Hispanics.

July 2011: Sheriff Joe Arpaio Settles $200k in Racial Profiling CaseArpaio paid $200,000 in a settlement to Julian and Julio Mora, a father and son who his agents zip-tied and held for three hours during a 2009 raid of the Phoenix landscaping firm Handyman Maintenance Inc., where the father worked.

This is only one example of the extreme form of racial profiling that Arpaio and MCSO regularly indulge in. A 2011 study found that Latino drivers are up to nine times more likely to be stopped by MCSO officers than non-Latino drivers engaged in similar conduct. In determining which cars to pull over, MCSO officers regularly use metrics like whether passengers look “disheveled” or like they don’t speak English – insufficient grounds for reasonable suspicion.

MCSO also has a track record of assuming guilt by proximity – they have been known to detain Latino persons who have been near worksites they were raiding. MCSO has also raided—without warrant or consent—homes adjacent to homes they suspect of criminal activity. On one such occasion, MCSO forcibly entered one such adjacent home—without any probable cause or reasonable suspicion—found no evidence of criminal activity, and still proceeded to zip-tie the residents and force them to sit on the sidewalk for more than an hour.

April 2012: Top Sheriff Arpaio Ally, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, is Disbarred for Ethical ViolationsBeginning in 2008, Thomas and Arpaio began using their offices to target officials who disagreed with them, or posed problems for their practices. The two launched criminal investigations against at least 14 county officials, including all five members of the Board of Supervisors, four judges, the county’s top two appointed officials, a high-ranking attorney for the county and two private lawyers. Evidence promised for the cases never materialized, and eventually all of the cases were dismissed. A disciplinary panel convened by the state Supreme Court disbarred Thomas for ethical misconduct and abuse of power.

May 2012:Department of Justice Sues Sheriff Arpaio for Refusing to Reform Enforcement PracticesFollowing the results of an investigation that found Sheriff Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office guilty of “a pattern or practice of unconstitutional policing” and “a chronic culture of disregard for basic legal and constitutional obligations,” the Justice Department sued Sheriff Arpaio for refusing to reform his enforcement practices and for refusing to accept the independent oversight of an outside monitor. The broad outlines of the charges being filed are: 1) discriminatory and unconstitutional law enforcement actions against Latinos who are frequently stopped, detained, and arrested; 2) discriminatory jail practices against Latino inmates with limited English skills; and 3) illegal retaliation against perceived critics, subjecting them to unfounded lawsuits or accusations of criminal actions.

03/03/15
After weeks of battling the inevitable, House Republicans appear set to finally advance a clean DHS funding bill stripped of immigration riders. This predictable outcome reinforced the fact that immigration is the Republicans’ kryptonite. Instead of helping the […]
Read More »

03/02/15
From the New York Times comes a heart-wrenching op-ed from Ehiracenia Vasquez, a member of the Texas Organizing Project. Ehiracenia, like millions of other families across the country, is eligible for the immigration relief announced […]
Read More »

03/02/15
The Monster of Their Own Creation is Out of Control An array of voices from across the political spectrum agree that the DHS funding debacle has been a colossal embarrassment and failure for the GOP. According […]
Read More »

03/02/15
It was barely a year ago when anti-immigrant carnival barkers like Mark Krikorian complained they were shut out of the annual CPAC event after organizers decided they needed to revamp their damaged image following Mitt […]
Read More »

02/27/15
In a critical blow to the GOP’s claim that it is capable of governing, the House just voted 203-224 against a short-term resolution funding the Department of Homeland Security for the next three weeks. Fifty-one Republicans […]
Read More »

02/27/15
Sen. Susan Collins’ anti-immigrant bill, which did not receive the votes needed to move toward passage today, tried to gain support from Republicans and moderate Democrats by claiming that it would not affect DACAmented DREAMers, […]
Read More »

02/27/15
Today the Senate approved a clean Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations bill, and Senate Democrats blocked a motion to proceed to a bill from Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) that would nullify the President’s immigration-related […]
Read More »

02/27/15
If the GOP Wants to Address Nation’s Immigration Problems, then They Should Give Up on Mass-Deportation Measures and Be Prepared for a Debate on Comprehensive Immigration Reform Today, the Senate voted to block debate on […]
Read More »

02/27/15
In the latest update on the looming government shutdown, the House and Senate are poised to vote on a short-term continuing resolution funding DHS for all of three weeks….apparently so that the Republican intransigence and intra-party […]
Read More »

02/27/15
Mark Krikorian, leader of the anti-immigrant “think tank” Center for Immigration Studies, once whitesplained Sonia Sotomayor‘s name and claimed that the reason why Haiti is so screwed up is because it wasn’t “colonized long enough.” Yet despite […]
Read More »

02/26/15
Funding for the Department of Homeland Security runs out tomorrow, yet Congressional Republicans are determined to continue playing with our nation’s security at the expense of millions of immigrant families. Everyone knows that a clean […]
Read More »

02/26/15
Today the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) kicks off a multi-day event featuring a contingent of likely 2016 Republican presidential contenders, conservative activists and media observers. Immigration is sure to be a dominant focus of […]
Read More »